Resort Report: The Canyons

If you’re like me and you haven’t checked out The Canyons Resort in Park City for a while you’re in for a surprise. The little resort that used to be known as Wolf Mountain has really grown up in the last few seasons building up its base area and opening countless acres of new terrain including the 9990 Express which takes you to an elevation of just under 10,000 feet—9990 feet to be exact … duh. With the snow gods finally cooperating for Utah and dropping a couple feet of fresh last week The Canyons staff was able to open up some more of their upper terrain including the Peak 5 high speed quad and the backcountry access point at the top of the lift. Steven Duke (no, not that Steven Duke) from The Canyons marketing department invited us to check the freshly opened terrain so I grabbed Park City locs Zach Siebert and Dave Munoa and hit it.

The Canyons has a pretty cool system for getting you up to the goods; when the upper lot is full you can park behind the 7-11 at the bottom of the hill (great for coldies after your shred) and take the Cabriolet people-mover lift from “Base Camp up to the Village area. From there it’s a safety meeting length ride in the Flight of the Canyons gondola to the Red Pine Lodge zone where you can access the Short Cut, High Meadows and Saddleback Express lifts. After a few laps on the Peak 5 lift, a quick hike out the backcountry access to grab some pow and a snack at the red Pine Lodge we decided to check out some of the other terrain. We found some fun little natural jibs off the Saddleback lift and we were able to hook back over to the mini-park jib line on our way back for more laps. Next we hit up the Sunpeaks lift and there we found some really fun lift accessed powder. It didn’t take us long to work out a fun line of slashes and hits to keep us occupied until the end of the day.

It snowed through most of the afternoon and there is a report of a dump heading towards the 801/435 zone for the weekend. There’s also a rumor that the 9990 Express might open this weekend providing access to a ton more high terrain so check it out. Thanks again to Steven Duke and all the Canyons employees…especially the cute cashiers at the Red Pine Lodge! See ya at The Canyons.